NEW YORK (AP) — Donald Trump was onstage at a rally on Long Island last month, talking about taxes, when he appeared momentarily spooked by something he’
— Donald Trump was onstage at a rally on Long Island last month, talking about taxes, when he appeared momentarily spooked by something he’d spotted over his shoulder.
“I thought this was a wise guy coming up,” he explained, joking that he was getting his elbow ready to fight back.
“You know I got a little bit of a yip problem here, right?” he added to laughs, using a term familiar to golf aficionados to describe a phenomenon once blamed on performance anxiety where players suddenly lose the ability to make easy shots. “I was all ready to start duking it out.”
It was a fleeting moment passed off as a joke. But as he returns to Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday for a rally at the site where a gunman opened fire in July, grazing his ear with a bullet, the scare underscores the lasting fallout for the candidate and his campaign even as much of the national attention has shifted to other crises.
Beyond the two attempts on his life in as many months, the former president and GOP nominee faces ongoing death threats from Iran, which has also been blamed for hacking top campaign officials and allies, exacerbating anxieties already heightened by a stepped-up security apparatus and new restrictions on how he can campaign.
Trump’s allies insist he was not fundamentally changed by the gunman who fired from an unsecured roof at the rally in July or the would-be assailant in September who shoved a rifle barrel through the fence at his West Palm Beach golf course.
The picture of Trump standing, with blood streaked across his face, as he raised his fist and shouted “Fight!” has become the indelible image of the campaign.
“When you almost lose your life, it stays with you. It stays with him,” said Florida Rep. Byron Donalds, a close Trump ally. “But that doesn’t change his resolve. His resolve is just as strong as it ever has been.”
Trump staffers are on edge. There have been death threats directed at his aides, and his team isn’t as able to quickly organize the mass rallies that have always been the signature of his campaigns.
Armed security officers now stand guard at the campaign’s Florida headquarters, and staff have been told to remain vigilant and alert.
Events have been canceled and moved around because the U.S. Secret Service lacked the resources to safely secure them. Even with the use of glass barricades to protect Trump onstage, there are concerns about holding additional rallies outdoors due to fears about drones.
